Books and Works on Paper

Books, catalogues, ephemera, pictures and other material from the collections of the Shorthorn Society of the United Kingdom & Ireland formed a significant part of a recent Carlisle sale.

Offered without a reserve, a job lot of “low grade” comics dating from the 1940s-50s ended up selling for £1200 in a Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) timed sale on thesaleroom.com.

Key to a price tag of £95,000 for a slightly bumped first impression copy of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' offered in a recent Bonhams sale lay in an inscription.

A very early railway guide, still in the original decorative boards, was a rare and unusual lot in a recent held by Mullock’s (20% buyer’s premium).

Comprising essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, all of which were published under the same pen name, ‘Publius’, The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution… is a key American contribution to political theory.

Sold at $60,000 (£46,295) in a recent New York sale was a broadside, Noticia Estraordinaria, printed in Mexico City in 1836, that brought news of the fall of the Alamo in March of that year.

British and Irish book auctions, March 31-April 11, 2020.

Rare works in South Cerney sale document the formative years of the Bank of England

First editions of all of Jane Austen’s major works featured in a sale last month held by Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

Containing some 600 hand-coloured engraved plates, a set of Sowerby and De Carle’s 'The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain…' of 1812-29 was just another of the many attraction in a sale last month held by Lyon & Turnbull.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

An album of 35 photographs relating to the Alaskan ‘Gold Rush’ of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries sold for £1900 rather than the estimate of £50-70 in a recent North Yorkshire sale.

Offered very early on in the books section of the Travel & Exploration sale at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium), a 24-lot collection relating to George Anson amassed by the late Colin Paul, a descendant of the admiral, attracted considerable interest.

A copy of Sylvia Plath’s 'The Bell Jar' in a well-preserved dust jacket sold for £3000 in a recent Surrey auction may have set a record for any uninscribed or association copy.

A copy of JRR Tolkien’s 'The Hobbit' offered in a recent Surrey sale was a first-impression one of 1937, but essentially defined by its truly sad and defective condition.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 11-31, 2020.

Very much the surprise of an online sale held by Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) was a lot presenting incomplete fragments of 'An Almanacke and Prognosticatyon'… for the year 1552.

An unexpected star turn of a recent Norfolk sale was a job lot of works from the library of the late Ron Fiske of Morningthorpe Manor, an East Anglian collector whose books a Norfolk auction house first started dispersing a few years years ago.

List of deaths is timely reminder that outbreaks are nothing new

Said to date from the 12th-14th century, an incomplete and dampstained Middle Eastern medical manuscript sold for £70,000 at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) on February 22.